Beer sales help rebuild monastery in NorCal

VINA, Calif. (AP) — Monks in a small Northern California town are rebuilding a 16th Century Spanish monastery with help from what may seem an unlikely source: Beer.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday that the first phase of the building’s decades-long restoration in the Sacramento Valley town of Vina has been completed, with the chapter house of the monastery now standing.

Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst imported the building in the 1930s for an estate that was never realized.

Hearst donated the monastery’s pieces to the city of San Francisco, but the dismantled building sat forgotten in Golden Gate Park for decades.

The Vina monks eventually convinced the city to let them rebuild it there, and with the help of the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in nearby Chico have raised millions to get started.